Mohr im Hemd à la Sacher (Chocolate Hazelnut Pudding)

The „Mohr im Hemd“ (literally: „moor in a shirt“) is a typical dessert of the Viennese cuisine. In fact it is a small, dark bundt cake with hot chocolate sauce and whipped cream. On March 14 in 1888 Verdi’s „Otello“ was performed at Vienna’s Hofoper (court opera) for the first time. In memory of the main character – a colored general – many Viennese coffeehouses reacted with offering an adequate confection of pastry!

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

50 g (1/4 cup) bittersweet couverture or cooking chocolate

30 g (1/8 cup) icing sugar

3 egg yolks

3 egg whites

3 cl (0,1 pt) rum

2 tbsps sugar

50 g (3/8 cup) breadcrumbs

50 g (3/8 cup) crumbed ladyfingers

2 tbsps milk

50 g (1/4 cup) hazelnuts or walnuts, roasted and grated

pinch of salt

100 g (1/2 cup) butter (melted for greasing)

3 tbsps sugar (for the baking forms)

For the chocolate sauce:

150 g (2/3 cup) dark chocolate

150 ml (0,25 pt) milk

20 g (1/8 cup) sugar

100 ml (1/2 cup) cream

1/2 pod vanilla (cut open)

80 g (3/8 cup) soft butter

1 cl (0,02 pt) cognac

300 ml (0,5 pt) cream (half-whipped, for decoration)

Preparation:

Grease some small soufflé molds with melted butter and dust with sugar. Refrigerate (so that the mixture can rise without running over the sides). Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Whisk the egg yolks with rum and icing sugar until fluffy. Pour in the melted chocolate. Whisk the egg whites and sugar and a pinch of salt until half stiff and carefully fold in about 1/3 of the egg whites. Combine the breadcrumbs, ladyfinger crumbs and milk and fold into the mixture, along with the nuts and the rest of the egg whites. Fill the molds 3/4 full with the mixture. Fill a deep baking tray with about 2 cm of water (or use a double boiler) and place the molds in the water. Bake in a preheated oven at 170 °C for about 20 minutes. For the chocolate sauce, heat the milk with the cream, sugar and vanilla pod. Remove the vanilla pod and melt the finely chopped chocolate in the mixture. Whip up the butter and pour in the chocolate mixture, stirring regularly. Pour in some cognac for extra aroma. Loosen the small cakes from their molds and arrange on plates. Pour on the warm chocolate sauce, and decorate with whipped cream.